Australian scientists have made a malaria breakthrough that could lead to an effective treatment to the deadly disease. READ MORE: 9News
The breakthrough from the University of Melbourne could lead to an effective treatment for a disease that kills more than 600,000 people a year.Plasmodium falciparum, one of the five parasites that causes malaria, shown growing in human red blood cells.
The compound inhibits the malaria parasite but does not affect human cells, Professor Leann Tilley said."Imagine a stealth weapon that can be used to launch a self-destruct attack on your vehicle – slamming on the brakes and cutting the engine. "ML901 finds a particular chink in the machinery that the malaria parasite uses to generate the proteins needed to reproduce itself and stops it doing so."In human blood cultures and an animal model, the compound killed malaria parasites that were previously resistant to drugs.
"It also shows potential for preventing infected people from transmitting the disease to others, which is critical to stop the spread of malaria," Tilley said. "We believe this is just the beginning. We now have the possibility of finding drugs, similar to ML901, that target a range of deadly infectious diseases, including multi-drug resistant bacterial infections.each year, mostly in Africa and southeast Asia.Malaria is spread by mosquitoes.
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